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Wednesday January 12th 2011

On paper, it seemed like the blogosphere’s collective wet dream. A Michel Gondry superhero movie with a screenplay by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg? Like Eternal Sunshine meets Iron Man meets Pineapple Express? On crack? Surely this is going to be the best movie ever!

Unfortunately and yet somewhat inevitably, all three strands fail to fully coalesce in The Green Hornet, making for a movie that’s full of great moments but lacks the unified tone that might tie them all together.

So while Gondry fans might be satisfied by the occasional injection of his trademark VFX cuntery into the proceedings, and Rogenites can rest assured that there’s plenty of ad-libbing, the combination of the two doesn’t make for a particularly satisfying watch. Especially when both elements take a backseat to the obsessively Marvel-ised plotting.

In my humble and yet incontrovertibly correct opinion, the choice between 2D and 3D filmmaking is the same as the choice between film and digital: both have their pros and cons, both are appropriate in different circumstances and yet one will inevitably overcome the other in the not so distant future.

Gondry’s strength has never been in his female characters (remember Melonie Diaz in Be Kind Rewind? Don’t worry, no one else does either) but with Cameron Diaz’s hideously irrelevant secretary-cum-love-interest Lenore Case, he’s found his most disposable leading lady yet. Every single one of her lines could be cut from the film and it wouldn’t affect the narrative one iota. Which ironically is probably exactly the sort of word she’d use because ALL WOMEN IN MOVIES ARE BOTH INCREDIBLY INTELLIGENT AND GOOD AT FIGHTING.

All of that said, The Green Hornet is foremost a victim of its own hype. Despite its flaws, it’s actually one of the better superhero movies of recent years, and for at least 60% of its runtime it delivers on all the promise of its hipster-royalty cast and crew. In other words, it’s a solid 0.6/1.